by Liu Qiyu

BEIJING, Sept. 11 (China Economic Net) - Energy infrastructure built today will have to operate for decades under climate conditions that may differ significantly from those on which it was designed, creating new demands for resilience in the energy system, Prof. Luo Yong, chair of the Department of Earth System Science at Tsinghua University, said in an interview.

With the climate changing significantly and extreme weather events becoming more frequent and intense, energy infrastructure planning needs to look beyond historical climate conditions and take future climate change into account, Luo said.

"In the past, our planning and standards for the energy system were mainly based on historical climate conditions, particularly climate averages over the previous 30 to 50 years. But with significant changes in the climate, we cannot continue to look backward as we did before; we need to look ahead," he said. One key area of coordination between meteorological and energy sectors, he added, is to incorporate projections of future climate change into energy infrastructure planning and the development of relevant standards.

The issue is becoming more pronounced as wind and solar power take a larger role in the energy system. In the past, weather and climate were largely treated as the external environment for energy systems. With a higher proportion of renewable energy, however, weather conditions increasingly affect energy production itself.

"Our energy system is gradually becoming an industry that, like agriculture, has to ‘make a living from the weather,'" Luo said.

This changing relationship also requires meteorological information to be translated into forms that energy systems can directly use. For an offshore wind farm facing a typhoon, for example, a conventional forecast may provide the storm's track and intensity, but energy operators need to know whether the facility can continue operating safely, when it should be shut down, and when and under what conditions it can resume operation, he said.

Another challenge is translating the uncertainty of climate projections into engineering parameters. Climate projections are often expressed as ranges and probabilities under different scenarios, while infrastructure design requires specific figures. Closer coordination between meteorological and energy experts is therefore needed to turn such projections into information that can support engineering standards and operational decisions, Luo said.

The risks involved can be compounded when extreme weather affects different parts of the power system simultaneously. Luo cited the summer of 2022, when heat and drought affected the Yangtze River basin. In Sichuan, high temperatures pushed up electricity demand while drought reduced hydropower generation, creating compound and cascading risks.

Universities and research institutions can contribute through long-term climate research, interdisciplinary cooperation and participation in international climate governance, Luo said.

Luo made the comments in an interview on the sidelines of the Fifth Meteorological Economy Forum in Beijing, a thematic forum of the ongoing 2026 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS). The forum was themed "Embarking on the 15th Five-Year Plan: Resilient Synergy between Climate Change and Green Energy."